Transcript

These are the four practices; meditation on Truth (dhyana); (abhyasa) practice; actions for the Lord (matkarma); and giving up the fruits of actions (tyaga). I’ll read the verses from the Gita which lead up to these practices and then describe them.
“Those who ever contemplate the imperishable, the indefinable, the unmanifest, the omnipresent, and the unthinkable, the unchangeable, the immutable, the eternal – having restrained all the senses, always equanimous, intent on the welfare of all beings, they reach Myself.  But greater is their trouble, whose thoughts are set on the unmanifest; for the goal, the unmanifest, is very hard for the embodied to reach.
“Those who worship Me, renouncing all actions in Me, regarding Me as the Supreme, meditating on me with exclusive Yoga, for them, whose thought is fixed on Me, I become the deliver out of the ocean of sansara.”
“Fix thy mind in Me exclusively. Apply thy buddhi (higher mind) to Me. Thou should live in Me alone hereafter. If you are unable to fix your thoughts steadily on me, then by the Yoga of constant practice (abhyasa) seek to reach me. If you are not equal to practice either, then be intent on doing actions for my sake.”
“Even doing actions for My sake, you will attain protection. If you are unable to do even this, then take refuge in My Yoga and abandon the fruits of all actions, self-controlled. Better indeed is knowledge than mere practice; than knowledge is meditation more esteemed; than meditation, the abandonment of the fruits of actions – for, on abandonment, peace follows at once.
Shri Shankara’scommentary on these four practices: “Those who worship Me; regarding me as the Supreme; meditating on Me with exclusive Yoga.”
Shri Shankara says that Yoga here means samadhi.  First practice of dhyana, meditation. “Fix thy mind in Me, exclusively. Apply thy buddhi to Me.”  Shri Shankara says this means fix the mind in manas (the thoughts and purposes) in the Lord; and not merely thoughts and purposes, but also the higher mind called the buddhi, which investigates and inquires.  So, direct thy thoughts and purposes, and also thy enquiry, to the Lord.
“If you are unable to do this, to fix your thoughts steadily on me, then by the Yoga of practice”, and Shri Shankarasays that will lead to samadhi acquired by such practice. In the final verse, it says, “Better is knowledge than mere practice”. Shri Shankara explains that practice can be practice on duality – the Lord is one and I am another. That will lead to practice on Truth, in which, Shri Shankara says, he will recognize in himself this Lord, ‘I am’.
Then the third one is actions for the Lord. Shri Shankara says this will mean you will do actions for the sake of the Lord only. From that, you will acquire a purity of mind. Then you will acquire Yoga or samadhi.  Then you will acquire knowledge, and then liberation.
Fourthly, if you are unable to do even this, then take refuge in the Yoga and abandon the fruits of your actions, still controlling the self. This is called tyaga.
Shri Shankara says that these are not meant to be simply preliminary to the others; but he’s to do as much as he can of each higher one and then complete his practice of that day by using the lower ones, which means that his life becomes more complicated. In the top one he’s simply meditating on Truth. Shri Shankara gives this as the stage of jnana-nishtha, which is a soaking in truth.
If he cannot spend his whole consciousness in this then, as much as he can, without formal practice, he throws his mind, his manas, and the buddhi, the reason, into the Lord. Then when he’s unable, Shri Shankara says, to attain that, then he must practice at a formal time every day and do the formal practice called abhyasa; which means he must make up his mind at a certain time every day that he will meditate and then he must do it. His meditation may be on duality, on the Lord in the universal form, says Shri Shankara, but for a long time that universal form will, so to say, be something universal, but somehow beyond the horizon.
But the time will come when the word ‘universal’ will mean something to him.  He will realize that if it’s universal, it must be in himself also. Then he will begin to be meditating on Truth. He’ll begin to be doing his formal practice on Truth. This will lead to a continuous meditation, as it were, on Truth. If he’s unable, Shri Shankara says, to take his abhyasa to the stage of samadhi, of unity with the object, then he should do as much as he can of throwing himself and his mind into the Lord. Then, in addition, he must do the formal practice. Then, for the rest of the day, he should act for the Lord; not doing actions for his selfish benefit, but acting for the Lord – following the scriptures and following the inspiration which he would receive from his attempts at practice and meditation.
If he finds that he cannot devote his life to acting for the Lord, then he’s to do as much as he can of the dhyana; he must do the formal practice as much as he’s able; he must make the actions for the Lord as much as possible. The other actions will be actions for himself, his family, and his possessions; but, when he does them, he must give up the fruits of those actions and dedicate those actions to the Lord. Then, Shri Shankara says, this will give peace, this giving up of the fruits.   But this is not meant that we should think ourselves incapable of doing the higher stages, and concentrate on the lower stages; because, he says, these are only to be done when the man is unable to fulfil the higher stages. He cannot know that, on any day, unless he has attempted them that day.
For the man in this stage, his day is a complicated one. He has to make different attempts, and gradually it becomes simpler, until it finally becomes one. The Truth meditation is to fix the buddhi,which determines, as well as the manas, the thoughts and purposes, on the Lord. The intellect is given to a man to exercise. There are schools of pure devotion, which say, “Throw your purposes into the Lord, throw your thoughts into the Lord. Don’t attempt to inquire. Don’t be inquisitive or curious”.  But the Yoga says, “No, the buddhi is given, and he should try to determine the nature of the Lord and the nature of himself.”  When he arrives at the stage of practising on Truth, then that will lead to jnana-nishtha, which Shri Shankara gives as the stage after knowing the Truth – it’s an intensification of the Truth. We can give some examples about this.
“Surely it’s enough simply to know and to have realized the truth?” But it need not be so and examples are given. A man came out of a prison where he had been very badly treated with some others. When he came out, he knew that he was free. He had committed no crime, because it was the misfortune of war that had led to it. When he came out, he found that he was free and he was with his friends; but for some days after he came out, every time he slept he dreamt that he was back – and he would begin to sweat and scream in his dreams. His friends would wake him up. For some time, he couldn’t do more than just doze and they stayed with him. Then when he was alone, he would begin to feel somehow that he was back in prison, and he would become in a very anxious state. Then his friends would talk to him and say, “No, you are here with us. You’re free.”
He was free from the very moment that he became free; but he was not, so to say, completely free in himself. If we like, we can compare this to jnana-nishtha, to becoming established in Knowledge – he had to become established in freedom. He was free, but he had to become established.  If he’s unable simply to feel, ‘I am free, I am free’ and be established in it, then he would have to do formal practice.  The formal practice can be, in the case of a man who can’t feel that the Lord is in himself at all, that he must worship the Lord.  And he’ll first worship the Lord as external and distant from him. This will be in abhyasa practice on the Lord in duality, because the Lord will be one and he will be another.  But this is the highest form of duality, and it’ll lead to the Truth.
Shri Shankara quotes the Gita, Chapter 15: “The yogis who strive see Him in the Self; but while their minds are yet unrefined, they will not see Him, in spite of their effort.” Shankara says, “The ‘yogis’ means those who are able to enter samadhi – they find Him in the form, ‘This I am’.”  We can say, “Well, the ordinary meditation gives Truth, it’s supposed to be Truth-bearing.”  Yes, it will give truth, but only on the level on which the man is meditating.  If he’s meditating on anything in maya or in duality, then it will give him the truth of that thing in duality.
In the Shakespeare play called, ‘Measure for Measure’, the Duke, who is the ruler, disguises himself as a friar. He solves the problems of the characters, even those who are condemned dead. Now, when he’s disguised, when we see the friar come on the stage, if we look very carefully, we shall see that it’s the Duke.  On the stage, even with the people he’s talking to, sometimes there are little clues in what he says, if they could follow them.  He says to the condemned man, “I’m here to give you religious consolation, but you must believe that your ruler will be doing something to get your release.” There are little clues, and if a man were to meditate on those very deeply, he might come to realize that the friar was none other than the Duke. That would be a truth, but it would still be a truth within the play.
If the audience were to meditate very deeply, they would see behind the friar, the duke; and behind the Duke, they would see the actor – but that would be going beyond the play, going beyond the duality of the play. We can see that the investigation, the vichāra, can be taken deeper and deeper. In the end, the man must give up meditating on duality; and, when he’s brave enough, begin to meditate on this, ‘I am’.  The Lord is within the Self’.
Then the actions for the Lord called matkarma, acting for Me – the Gita, Chapter two says, “The undisciplined man has no buddhi. The higher mind is not operative.” The undisciplined man has no bhavana, which means efficient force. The word means making something to be, to come about. “He, who has no efficient force, has no peace. For him without peace, how can there be bliss?” It’s meant not to suppress, or destroy any of the feelings of man, but to discipline them and give them an effective and a proper manifestation.
An efficient force – people can say, “Oh, when a strong feeling comes, all the little talk about considerations of this and that and discipline, all that goes by the wind.”  As HG Wells said, “When the real gale blows, what can stop?” There are people who feel this. They may also feel, if they read a spiritual book, profoundly moved, and they may say, “Yes, I would like to give a lot of my life…  But one has to think of the family.”  Their friend might say, “Now is the time for the great gusts of feeling, which sweeps over all consideration?”
That would mean the feeling has no efficient force. It only upsets and destroys the life. The aim of Yoga is to discipline it and give it efficient force. In the same way the intellect is meant to be devoted to determining the nature of the Lord and the nature of the Self. This is the efficient force of the intellect. The intellect, if it’s undisciplined can say, “All the spiritual paths are finally one.  Now for instance, if you take the mantras and the Shiva Samhita (‘kreem, kreem’) and you compare them with some of the names of God in the Koran (Kareem…), well, it doesn’t quite correspond to the last one; but if we started soon enough, perhaps we could put it all together – one enormous sort of outline.  It would take many years, and in the meantime, I wouldn’t have to do any practice.”  This would be the intellect without efficient force. The purpose of the Yoga is to give the intellect efficient force, to enable the buddhi to become efficient at grasping the point, instead of evading the point.
In the art called Judo, at the beginning, when they practice one of the techniques, they practice in a pair; and one man gives the other an opportunity, and he throws him. Then this one gives the opportunity, and he throws. The idea is that they should mutually have the chance to practice.  Sometimes you meet one who says, “Oh no, no.  I don’t want to be thrown by anyone who can’t throw me. I’m very competitive.” You say, “But this is just a practice.  Later on, you can be competitive, but this is to learn technique.” “Oh, no.”  Well, he seems alright, a strong piping spirit; but later on in a contest, he’ll break his toe.  The teacher will say, “Let’s strap it up after the next bout. Where’s the fighting spirit?  Now’s the time for the fighting spirit.”  “Oh, you can’t expect me to go on.”
The purpose of discipline is not to destroy the fighting spirit, or to destroy the feelings, or to destroy the intellect, but to make them bhavana – an efficient force.
‘Matkarma’: to do actions for the Lord. We’re given some of the actions for the Lord to do in the scriptures; but our teacher often said, “Every man must be able to go into meditation every day into a silence. In that silence, he will receive an inspiration as to the things he should do and create.”  ‘In that silence’ – without that inspiration, we shall pick and choose among the different things in the scriptures, or among the different things which are possible for us to do, and we shall feel all the while, ‘I am working for the Lord’. One of the Free Church of Scotland ministers was approached by another minister of a different church, who said, “No, we shouldn’t quarrel. Really, we’re both doing the Lord’s work. Aren’t we?” The first minister said, “Yes, we’re both doing Lord’s work.  You in your way and I in His.”
I always feel we are working for the Lord, but in fact, there may be something very different behind that. In Japan, there is a sect, which specializes in doing very humble, menial work. The founder was a young official of quite some standing.  The conflict of interest between big business and labour was so acute, that he felt he couldn’t go on with it and he began to meditate in the Zen style. Finally, he meditated continuously for three days and nights; and he decided he must give up his property, and he must go around serving people in the most humble way, without taking any money for the service.  Well, he nearly died, but in the end, people began to give him food.  He used to specialize in cleaning out the dirtiest houses and especially the lavatories. They don’t have flush toilets there and cleaning out lavatories was something nobody liked to do.
Well, now there’s a great sect, and they are all specialized in cleaning out the lavatories, and they have such contempt for the people who don’t. They say, “Oh, these people, they’re studying, they’re doing this and that, they’re meditating, they’re praying. Let them clean up – they’re so famous for their arrogance.” – because that doesn’t spring from their own meditation, from their own inspiration. The founder had the genuine inspiration; but the others simply follow his inspiration.  It must come every day, fresh and fresh, the inspiration as to what is to be done.